1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data recording apparatus capable of recording a data signal onto a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic tape. The present invention also relates to a data recording system using the data recording apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
A multi-channel recording system such as a recent security camera system includes a plurality of cameras, controllers for controlling the operations of the cameras, and monitors capable of displaying images photographed by the cameras. The images photographed by the cameras are recorded in a hard disk. The number of cameras that can be connected to such a system is determined by a data transfer speed. For example, in the case of a system using a hard disk, the data transfer speed is at most about 14 Mbps, and the number of cameras that can be connected to one system is at most 16 (16 channels).
Patent Document 1 (JP 2003-339042 A) discloses a configuration of recording image data captured by cameras in a hard disk drive. According to the configuration described in Patent Document 1, captured image data is recorded in a hard disk drive, and thereafter, saved in a tape library. That is, the tape library is used for the purpose of backup.
The above-mentioned configuration of recording image data in a hard disk drive has a problem of an increase in cost. More specifically, according to the above configuration, the number of cameras that can be connected to a system is limited to 16, so that a system needs to be added in order to increase the number of cameras, which increases cost substantially.
Furthermore, in the case where the remaining capacity of a hard disk drive is used up, it is necessary to add a hard disk drive. One hard disk drive costs about ¥1,000,000, which is more expensive compared with a tape medium that costs about several tens of thousands yen per volume. Thus, cost increases largely every time a hard disk drive is added.